Chiaroscuro
by aleson
Summary: An interlude into the lost years of Bruce Wayne before Batman, back when he was nobody. There were seven years of turmoil but one moment of tranquility. COMPLETE!


**i. safe**

Pain. Everywhere.

That was the first thought that registered in Bruce Wayne's mind when his eyes fluttered open, the sunlight filtering through the windows dilating his sensitive pupils. Bruce—no, he was not Bruce Wayne anymore. He was nobody. He had left behind his old life to forge a path for one that would make more sense, one that would not be so broken and confused and unlike anything Thomas Wayne would have dreamed his son would become.

And at the moment, he had no idea where he was.

His eyes glanced over his surroundings—a room he had no recognition of. He started to sit himself up and cried out when he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen.

The door opened, loudly hitting the wall as it swung all the way forward. A young woman rushed to his side and pressed a palm against his chest and another against his back as she steadied him back down. He was so tired but he fought to keep his eyes open and stay awake.

"_Sh_, it's alright," she said soothingly. "You're okay."

He stopped struggling when the lull of her gentle voice filled his ears. His head throbbed painfully and everything faded to black.

***

He heard a soft murmuring of voices that roused him from his deep, dreamless sleep—the first sleep that had remained without nightmare since a very long time ago in another world where fathers and mothers weren't murdered and boys orphaned at young.

He opened his eyes and turned his head. Instantly, the two speakers broke their conversation. An older man and the same woman—no, he saw she was only a girl who had to be younger than him—quickly rushed to his side. The older man shined a light into his eyes and he swore angrily in return.

"He's in the clear," the older man said dryly with arched eyebrows.

"Oh good," the girl breathed. "Good… good…" She seemed relieved but he didn't know why. She had no reason to care about him. Hell, he didn't care about him.

"Becky, this is the last time. I'm serious this time," the older man said warningly. "You can't keep picking up these stragglers left and right like stray kittens." Stray kitten. Ha. First time he had ever been called that.

"I know, Doc," the girl, he assumed Becky, said.

"Just keep him in bed and give him painkillers and he'll be good to go in a few days. Call me if anything comes up," the doctor said before he left the room.

The door shut closed and Becky turned to him, smiling brightly.

"Hello, stranger. How you feeling?"

"Where… am… I…?" he managed to say between deep breaths.

"Safe," she said. "You're safe."

He coughed.

"I feel… like… _shit_."

That made her smile, the corner of her lips quirking up to reveal pretty dimples.

"You'll feel better soon," she said. "Just go back to sleep."

So he did.

***

The third time he woke up, this time from a dream he did not understand, he felt much better. The sun didn't hurt his eyes so much and he could breathe more easily. The confusion from the days past cleared as memories returned. He remembered it had been two weeks since he had left behind the title of Gotham's prince when he'd been ambushed by a group of street punks who had informed him he was on their territory. He did not remember much else, except for the adrenaline that had been pumping in his veins, his fists itching to throw the punches he had been robbed from giving Chill.

Angry. He had been very, very angry.

He glanced around and saw she was not in the room. He wondered how much time had passed since she had found him.

He climbed out of the bed very slowly, muscles still aching in places he didn't know he had muscles and breaths quickening as he felt pain spike up here and there. Finally, he was up on his feet, though feeling as if he would probably collapse soon. He shivered from the cool air touching his bare torso but he didn't see his clothes so he ignored the cold and stepped out of the door.

A sweet aroma invaded his nostrils and he continued to walk stealthily through the hall, meeting the kitchen and not capturing the notice of the girl who was cooking something in the oven. He stared at her then, seeing his savior clearly for the first time—well, her back anyway.

She had black hair that was tied in a low ponytail resting at the nape of her neck. She was not especially tall, but especially thin and looked as if maybe she'd break if he'd touch her and he got the sudden impulse of running away. Things around him always seemed to break without his meaning to.

Finally, she turned around and her dark eyes met his and she jumped up in surprise, the bowl she held clattering to the floor to shatter in bits and pieces.

"You shouldn't sneak up like that," she said very faintly.

"I don't mean to be sneaky," he said in return, his voice hoarse.

"What's your name?" she asked as she stepped over the pieces of glass to reach him.

He hadn't thought about that so he said nothing.

"Alright then," she said. "I'm Rebecca, but you can call me Becky."

He didn't reply so she continued to speak.

"You must be hungry."

The mention of food made him feel a sudden pang of hunger in his stomach and he nodded his head quickly. Becky turned away from him and he suddenly caught her wrist, causing her to stumble backwards into his arms and against his bare chest. She flushed and scrambled away from his touch, though his hand still connected to her.

"What on earth...!" Becky stopped when she met his unnerving gaze.

"You're bleeding," he said coolly. He looked pointedly down and she looked down herself to see he was right. A crimson gash graced her lower calf.

"It only started to hurt just now," she said, dark eyes wide, and he let go. "I'll be right back. Wait a minute," she told him.

She stepped into the halls to her bathroom and came back out a little later with a bandage wrapped around her leg. Becky walked to the kitchen and turned to him when she saw the glass had been cleared from the floor.

"You didn't have to clean it up," she said.

He gazed into her eyes, observing her very carefully and she looked back at him evenly. They stared at each other for a long while before he finally broke the silence.

"You're welcome," he said.

She smiled and it started then. She raised an eyebrow at his naked chest.

"Let me get you your shirt. It should be dry now."

* * *

**ii. warmth**

"So, what are you doing down here in the middle of nowhere, stranger?" Becky asked as she popped a grape inside her mouth. She chewed, she swallowed, and she retrieved another one of the bite-size fruits from the bowl she held in her lap. The whole time, his eyes followed the light purple move from her fingers to her mouth. He licked his lips unconsciously and Becky laughed.

She jumped off the counter and winced, the movement shooting a sliver of pain up from her wounded leg. He considered asking her if she was okay, but his mouth was dry and forming words was unusually tiring. Becky recovered in a moment anyway, and she stepped towards him, offering him the bowl of grapes.

"Haven't eaten?" she said with raised eyebrows and mouth curved up to an amused smile.

He didn't answer, but he took the grapes and mimicked her previous motion, popping one in his mouth and savoring the crisp, sweet grape—but not _too_ sweet since it was tempered with the bitter taste and slightly chalky texture of skin. Still, the fruit was sweeter than the best grapes he had back at home and Alfred always purchased the best of fruits; it was one of his stranger particularities.

The scent of cookies still invaded his senses, and he realized wryly that the girl must have liked sweet foods because aside from the cookies and grapes, there was a box of pop tarts and three brands of sugary kids' cereal on top of the fridge, and a bowl of chocolates on the countertop. Normally, he wasn't really one for sweet foods, but he was too hungry to care at the moment.

"Hmmm," she said as she walked to the cupboards and pulled out a package of instant ramen. "Sorry, not much food in the house. I should go to the grocery store later—but, I can whip you up some noodles in a jiffy." Becky grabbed a pot and turned on the faucet, running water making a strangely comforting noise as it hit the metal of the pot. She turned on the stove and put a cover on the pot before turning back to him and smiling. "You still didn't tell me what you're doing in the middle of nowhere."

"I'm just traveling," he answered vaguely, no longer shoving the grapes down his throat. His stomach rumbled still and the dull ache remained, but the fruit wasn't actually helping his hunger lessen any more.

"Ah, so you're a wanderer," said Becky. She sat down in the chair next to him.

"You could say that." Actually, it was a perfect term. He hadn't really thought about it, being more concerned with running but not really knowing where, just knowing he didn't want—he _couldn't_ stay at Wayne manor or anywhere in Gotham anymore. It was too painful, and it wasn't home. It hadn't been for a long time.

Becky looked at him, but not like the other times. This time, there was something assessing in her eyes, something staring at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable because it wasn't pitying or disapproving, but scarily enough—and, causing him to get a little irritated—understanding.

"You lost, stranger?"

He wasn't sure what to say to that, and he didn't plan on saying anything at all, but somehow words ended up dropping from his mouth instead and he spoke words that were read to him a very long time ago by a father.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

"Aha. Nice," Becky looked down at her twiddling fingers and smiled. "So you've read Tolkien, I gather." She lifted her head back up and gazed at him again with that look again. She pursed her lips and it looked like she was thinking hard whether or not she should say whatever had drifted into her mind. She made her decision a few moments later and asked him, "But, you're a lost one, aren't you?"

"And you, are you lost?" he asked in return, his words harsh and clipped, jarring even to his own ears.

She shook her head, not at all bothered. "No, I'm not. I'm just alone," she said honestly, and instantly, he felt guilt percolating. He was ashamed, and he knew that what Rachel Dawes had said was right. If his father was alive… what was wrong with him? She saves his life. She offers him food and shelter. She just asks him the most basic information, and he snaps at her angrily in return. And still, she wasn't annoyed or taken aback—but understanding and willing to reveal something he was sure was intimate.

He wanted badly to apologize, but the words were stuck on his tongue.

"Stranger, I know I'm awfully beautiful, but don't forget to breathe on my account," said Becky teasingly, and he realized that he had been staring at her intently and holding in his breath. He coughed violently, his body starved from air, and she laughed at him.

"Your water's boiling," said Becky, and stood. She walked to the stove and shoved the dry noodles into the boiling water. She turned around and looked at him expectantly. "Well," she said. "You want an egg, don't you?"

He blinked at her unsurely and didn't think it'd be wise to tell her he'd never had ramen before. Ramen was never present in the kitchens of Wayne manor.

"It tastes better with an egg," said Becky, ignoring his strangeness. "Get me an egg from the fridge, please."

He stood and opened the fridge door. He found the eggs easily, mostly because there was hardly anything in the refrigerator. There was a bag of the grapes he had eaten earlier, the carton of eggs, leftover Chinese take-out, an apple, three oranges, a carton of nonfat milk, and pretty much nothing with any real nutritional value.

"No wonder you're so skinny, you don't eat well," he said without thinking—and then flushed when he realized he was saying words that Alfred would say.

Becky turned to him and replied dryly, "You're one to speak, stranger. I'm not the one starving."

He handed the carton of eggs to her and felt a strange, unfamiliar tug of muscles in his face. She took the eggs from him and continued to force conversation out of him.

It wasn't until he was in the bathroom much later on, washing his hands and glancing at the mirror that he realized what the tug of muscles had been.

He had smiled.

* * *

**iii. sanctuary**

When he heard the soft cry, he shot up straight in cold sweat. There was silence, nothing but the frantic pounding in his chest. He waited and the silence continued to smother the air. His heart relaxed, the air easier to breathe, and he wondered whether he had just imagined the cry, before there came a whimper and all his senses shot back up to alert. His heart pounded even more fiercely than before.

He quickly but quietly removed himself from the couch. He scanned the room for anything he could use as a makeshift weapon and rested his eyes upon the empty fruit bowl centered on the table. He tiptoed to her room, heavy bowl in hand, and stopped right in front of the closed door. He couldn't hear the presence of anyone else, but with another distressed sob, he opened the door. The creak of the hinge made him wince. In the quiet of all else, it was immensely disruptive and he knew there would be no surprise on his side.

But the door opened full on and he saw immediately there was no need.

Becky tossed and turned, the covers of her bed tossed aside. The blinds were open and he narrowed his eyes at such an open invitation for danger before he realized, no, they were not in Gotham. The moon was generous with its light, showering rays across her bed and giving her pale skin an eerie blue-ish tint. She moaned and shifted to another side. Her muscles were coiled in bundles of tense energy and he could spot the glitter of sweat upon her brow.

Nightmares. He understood this very well.

His heart steadied in his chest and he left the bowl on the floor before walking up to her.

He stood before her, unsure of what to do, but also well aware of a reluctance to just… leave her alone. To do that felt wrong somehow.

So he knelt down and clumsily ran a hand through her hair. She sighed deeply and when her fingers twitched, he took hold of her hand and pressed his thumb into her palm. He placed his other hand upon her back and smoothed it down in what he hoped was a soothing motion.

She quieted and he stared at her for a long, long time.

***

Moments later, when she opened her eyes, woken from inescapable dreams, he was gone.

Becky had felt some warm presence, akin to the memories she had of faces she could no longer recall. She wondered whether it had been some comfort sent from those above. And then she saw it. The door was closed but the bowl remained, casting its shadow on the floor.

***

"Stranger," said Becky.

He looked up and it occurred to him then he had gotten rather used to being called that.

"Will you promise me something?"

"I'm not good with promises," he said.

Especially, he thought, if she was going to ask him to stay.

She never mentioned the other night, and he had gone right after he had quelled the last dirges of distress, but he had remembered the fruit bowl only after he had gone. When he woke up to the smell of pancakes in the morning, it stood back in its place on the kitchen table. And when he met her gaze while eating breakfast, brown against brown, he knew she knew he had been there.

"Just… before you go, let me know." She looked down at her hands. One side of her mouth quirked up in a nervous smile and she made the unnecessary gesture of brushing hair back behind her ear.

The whole image of her made his heart hurt and he wasn't sure exactly why. There was something about her, and he had taken the opportunity last night to study her uninterrupted. It was not like the stirrings in his heart when he thought of Rachel, but it was also not just that Becky endeared herself to him in her strange ways.

She seemed to him broken.

"Becky," he started.

He could only break her more.

"Just give me a sign, please," she interrupted him. Becky looked up at him with her dimpled smile, but he saw the measure of absolute loneliness shining in her eyes. She rested a hand on top of his. Hers was thin and white, with long slender fingers, over his broader, weathered hand.

He nodded and learned in that moment how hard it would become for him to ever say 'no'.

* * *

**iv. oblivion**

How hard it was to wrap his mind around the tentative relationship which had sprung up between Becky and him. He could not explain how or why, but he felt a certain affinity to the girl, and she seemed to revel in his presence in her own eccentric ways. He did not wonder if it was necessarily his presence itself which attracted her, because one thing he knew was that Becky was a lonely girl. It had occurred to him long ago that anyone else would have attracted the same attention.

If they were any other two normal people in an ordinary situation, he somehow doubted she'd make a fuss of him at all. He did not blame her. He knew well he was nothing special.

She told him stories when she changed his bandages. White strips of thick gauze stained red with blood crumpled in a heap by her feet. Becky wiped his injuries with great care, the cold cloth against his heated skin bringing some physical relief. Afterwards, when she had dried the excess water, she began to dress his wounds with fresh layers, which would no doubt be bloodied by the next morning. The process was a tedious one and at times, he would clench his teeth at the prickling of pain when she dabbed antiseptic over the open cuts, but it was a sort of pain he welcomed for a reason he could not quite fathom.

He did not always listen to the actual content of her tales, his mind quite unable to hold still enough to grasp the meaning of her sentences, but he always listened to her voice. He could listen to her voice for hours when it felt only like minutes. It was during these times when he first picked up the cadence of her speech, the inflections in her voice which were not common to his ears. The rhythm was unusual and he could not place the reason for its difference, the accent so slight it was hardly there. But when she spoke during long stretches at a time and when he listened, it was there, and it became a comfort to hear. It did not take long for him to start pulling it into his mind in the moments before sleep, trying desperately to hold onto it and pull it into a softer dream.

It worked sometimes.

On the third day she redressed his wounds and the blood no longer flowed, she halted in her speech for a moment and he took the moment to ask her about it then.

"I suppose it's because I first learned to speak in another tongue," she said, knowing exactly his meaning when he brought it up. As slight as her accent was, it could not have gone unnoticed her whole life. Becky creased her forehead. "I can't speak it anymore. It was when my parents were... they were the only ones who spoke it to me."

"What language was it?" he finally asked. Her explanation was reasonable enough and so he tried to place the accent on his own but drew up a blank.

Becky smiled at him. She turned her gaze to a hanging on the wall. Thick parchment paper with rich strokes of calligraphy drawing out elaborate characters set underneath a mountainous landscape and purple sky.

Realization dawned quickly. "I've always wanted to pick up Chinese," he said. It was a truth. Back at Princeton, for one semester he -- he quickly shut off his trail of thoughts. It was better for him to leave the past where it was. Instead he tried to seek out the Chinese roots in her way of speech, but still found little resemblance. He supposed it was simply the complex miring of a child half-learned in one language re-rooting words to another in the most practical fashion.

"It's a complicated language. I don't really know much but my name. Those words there are a mystery to me," Becky admitted with a careless shrug of the shoulders, but he saw the slight longing in the heavy sigh which she could not tuck away.

"I don't really see it," he said. When Becky looked to him curiously, he clarified. "The Chinese. I wouldn't have known."

"I'm only a fourth," said Becky. "My father was half and could speak it fluently. My mother met him when they were both teaching English in the countryside. She wanted to go somewhere far from home, and it was there she picked up the language."

"Do you think you'll ever try to learn it again?"

Her lips twisted into a wry smile.

"There wouldn't be anyone to speak it with."

He was reminded then that he knew as much about her as she knew about him. Everything and nothing at the same time.

***

The bandages came off on the fourth day and were not replaced with new ones. There was a moment, when the white strips fell for the last time and she gave his wounds a look of approval. He shifted awkwardly in his seat, unsure of what came next. Nothing bound her to him. They shared no blood ties. They were not friends. They were not acquaintances. They didn't even hail from the same state. She grew up watching the sun rise four hours before him. They were more than strangers.

He did not know what to expect. In the past few days she had allowed him to intrude into her world, there was never a mention of his leaving, not even a hint.

She looked up from the arm she no longer needed to treat daily. Her eyes met his. He saw there the same uncertainty. There was that moment, where each recognized each others doubts as their own. And then, in a flash, the hesitation cleared, the guards were raised back up where they always were, and he recognized nothing.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him, standing up and picking the bandages off the floor. "What do you want to eat for lunch?"

He knew from then, she would never mention him leaving, just as she never brought up his past.

"Anything but ramen," he said.

He really had no excuse to stay, except that she let him.

***

His wounds were healing nicely, though his body continued to ache when he moved throughout the little apartment. Sometimes when she was out of the house, he came to the window. He would lift his hand and touch the dark curtain which muffled the daylight into a dim orange glow. His fingers would furl around the edge of the thick drapes, but before he could pull them open, his hand would drop down to his side.

Despite its coziness inside, there was a strange dreariness within every corner of each room stifling the atmosphere. It was as though the rain was constantly on a downpour outside. But even if it was almost suffocating in the apartment, it was not at all unbearable or even undesirable. Instead, it served to further the bond which grew between him and Becky, as two young children taking refuge at the bus stop together, waiting out the storm.

It was uncomfortable and comforting at the same time. He had no perception of time within the walls. Sometimes Becky would leave to buy whatever was needed, but she was never gone for very long. He discovered in her constance presence the realization she could not have had a regular job, but he did not inquiry her further on the matter. Her apartment was small, yes, but for a single young woman living on her own in economically troubled times, it was unusual not only that there was a spare room, but the whole place was comfortably furnished with perhaps not the same luxurious quality as Wayn -- It was reasonable to suppose she had a large enough inheritance or something of the sort to allow her to live out her days in a comfortable existence.

Here they were two people spending their days in a warm cave. Ignoring the world outside, together. It was almost as though they were playing house. Both knew it was not real, and yet... it was not even as though it was easy to pretend, but it was easy to want to. He was not happy, but he was not sad. He did not feel the burden of memory pressing down on him hard as it used to -- those days when it became sometimes hard to breathe. He felt no emotions to pull him back to pain which seemed so distant to him now. His thoughts did not linger on Rachel as they once did. He did not think at all. The world outside did not exist. The past did not exist. The future did not exist.

There existed only the cave, him, and Becky. The rhythm of her voice when she spoke.

If he opened the curtains, he was afraid the illusion would break.

It faltered enough already at night.

* * *

**v. awakening**

Night came and if Becky did not roam in nightmares, then he did.

It was hard for him to say which was worse.

His nightmares were often the same. They were a jumble of images and thoughts he could not decipher, but they frightened him all the same. Sometimes he thought he could trace the vague shadows of a bat. Most of the time, he could trace nothing at all. And every time, within amidst the unspeakable horrors plaguing his mind, something soothing would eventually fall down on him in a tiny drop. From there, the drop would grow, creeping up all sides of him until he was left with feelings of calm.

He would feel a hand in his, warm and soft, and it would be in these moments he would waken from his dreams. He would not open his eyes when the fog was cleared, but instead, continue as he was, letting the hand brush back his hair and the lyrical tone of her voice fill his ears. His body stilled, as did his breathing. At some point, he knew Becky knew full well he was no longer sleeping, and eventually, she would stand up from her seat and leave the room as quietly as she came. It was not until the door shut after her when he would finally open his eyes, staring at the ceiling and feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest in the still midnight air.

She never acknowledged his wakening, and he never acknowledged her in the mornings.

The other nights, when it was Becky trapped within dreams, he came to her side and held her hand within his until she calmed herself. He learned the methods of her breathing, knew exactly the moment when she woke. Sometimes, when he stared down at her still form, awake but mock sleeping, he dared her eyes to open up at him. But ever since that first time, when she spoke of his nightly visit the next day, just as he did, she never acknowledged his presence, and he let her feign her sleep.

Such nights, as often as they were, could not be spoken of. It was only in this way they could pretend they did not exist.

It was as with the curtains; the nightmares were too real.

***

She often woke up before him, and when she didn't, he usually stayed inside his bed anyway, waiting until she came to fetch him, knocking on the door to let him know breakfast was ready. That morning he woke, he waited for only a few minutes or so before he got up himself. Something felt different. He wasn't sure what exactly, but there was an absence in the atmosphere. Her bedroom door was open and empty inside, and when he went to the kitchen, she wasn't there either. He wasn't exactly surprised, but mildly curious as to her whereabouts.

He lingered about, read a magazine, did some push-ups, but in the back of mind he knew he was just occupying himself until Becky returned.

She did about an hour later.

He heard the keys jingle at the lock and immediately, he felt a spark of anticipation.

"Hey, stranger," she said when she entered. She held a bouquet of flowers in one hand, red roses, yellow daffodils, and pink carnations. In her other hand, she held a bag of groceries and breakfast food from Burger King.

He nodded his head at her in greeting.

"Eat," she said, dropping the Burger King bag onto the kitchen table.

They both sat at the table. He ate his food. She didn't touch hers. He watched her curiously as she proceeded to pluck the petals off each flower, one by one. He kept watching her, fascinated. When Becky glanced over at him and saw his bemusement, she smiled.

"Sometimes I feel compelled to destroy things," she said.

"I could understand that," he said.

"I thought you might," said Becky. She stopped her meticulous movements and stared down at her work. She had gone through most of the flowers by now. "I have always thought how lovely and horrible it would feel to burn down something big. Like a house, or a forest."

He chuckled.

"You think it's weird," Becky said.

"I didn't realize I was saved by an arsonist," he said.

When he looked up to her, his amusement vanished. There was suddenly a certain tension in the air he did not understand. She stared at him with an inscrutable expression on her face. He met her gaze unflinchingly, but there was an intensity there which made him look away. He drew in his breath sharply and when he looked back to her, she was plucking petals off a rose with a smile on her lips. The tension had gone as quickly as it had come.

"You never know," Becky said jokingly. "You might wake up one day surrounded by fire."

***

He opened his eyes. He could hear it, rustling of sheets and soft whimpers. He got up and crept into her room. He walked to her side slowly, careful not too make too much noise. He sat down on the seat and observed her carefully. She had already gone still, her breathing harsh but controlled and her hands covering her eyes. He watched for some time. When he finally stood to make his way out of the room, he felt a small hand grip around his wrist.

"Stay," said Becky quietly.

His breathing deepened and his heart fell harder against his chest. It was a dangerous moment, here. If he pretended not to hear her, he knew she would go along with the charade. But if he turned around, he knew, everything would change. And yet, he could feel her behind him, watching him, waiting to see what he did next. She had to have known, things could not remain the same if he turned, and still, she wanted him to.

It was that moment of realization which prompted his next action -- for really, how could he deny her wish?

"Stranger," she breathed when he faced her. She had drawn herself up to sit up straight. A glow about her face, both desperate hunger and uncertainty in her eyes. She knew better and less than him, what exactly it was at risk. In that moment, she did not care. "Stranger," she said again, a plea in her voice, and he knelt down towards her bed, his knees upon the mattress. She lifted a hand to his voice, fingers pulling back his hair. She stared at him silently, lips parted slightly, and he thought she was going to kiss him. He hoped.

Instead, in a move that surprised him, she lowered her head against his chest, her mass of black hair against his bare skin. She stayed there, listening to his heart beating. For how long, he was uncertain, but he jolted up nearly in surprise when she turned his face to deliver a sweet kiss to where she had been listening moments earlier. The action stirred something in him, a longing which he had kept carefully wound up inside him suddenly released, and he was upon her in an instant. His mouth met hers in a furious kiss, a hand splayed across her belly and fingers lifting the hem of her shirt. He attacked her with frantic need, and she returned the heady fervor with as much enthusiasm.

Their touches lost all semblance of the shaky politeness they had kept between them in their daily rituals. Such masks were dropped and instead they sought each other out with eager hands, touching everywhere and wherever they could as though they were lost lovers found. But they were not in love, and they did not make love. Their movements were not gentle enough for that, there was not enough meaning in them, only rough, careless movements driven by heat and want.

No words were spoken, but then, there was no real need. After the dam had broken, everything they had held only flew apart and neither kept sense of their mind.

And then, they stilled for a moment. Their breaths fell down hard upon them. He pinned her down with his eyes and she met his penetrating gaze with just as much fierce desire. They held each other gazes as he entered her slowly. She let out a deep sigh, a crinkle of the forehead, and brushed her hand against his cheek. Emotions began to rise within him, guilt, perhaps, but before they could fully reach him, she lifted her hips and broke the spell which had brought the halt in their feverish haze.

It began again.

He rose. He fell.

Gasps and soft moans, the mass of her dark hair fanned out across the bed and fingers curling into the sheets. Her back arched towards him, small breasts grazing his chest.

He saw only her. He felt only her. His thoughts were on only her.

He felt a peace which he had not felt in a long, long time.

He felt free.

***

He woke.

She continued to sleep.

Her body was curled towards his, and parts of her bare flesh casually touched his. The feel of her soft skin reignited some of the night before, but he reigned himself in with the control he had earlier lost. He studied her carefully, trying to memorize every little detail and burn it into his mind. The curl of her eyelashes, the constellation of moles on her left shoulder, the pout of her pink lips... She seemed to him an altogether different creature. He was more used to observing her at night. Even then, it was something else which changed.

He took her hand within his and unconsciously, she fell closer to him.

Warmth for her glowed inside him.

Becky... Becky was...

Becky was so beautiful.

She truly was.

He awoke.

Becky wasn't a boy, making mistakes every which way he went. Becky wasn't him shaming his father, ready to take the life of one for his own petty revenge against a greater good. Becky wasn't a dark shadow of a city, souls lost to the grips of the urban lords of the new century. Becky wasn't a childhood friend, sweeter than all his sweetest dreams, with his hand too insubstantial for him to reach. Becky wasn't painful. Becky wasn't remembering.

Becky was shelter, freely offered for nothing but his own worthless self. Becky was warm. Becky was good. Safe and Peace. She was freedom. She was a trap.

He did not know anymore. He knew only this:

Whatever she was, he did not deserve her.

***

She had asked him once to leave a sign.

Before he left, he opened the heavy drapes of the living room.

It was still night, but in the day, light would flood the room as it never had before.

He pondered over a piece of paper and pen for a good fifteen minutes, trying to decide what parting note to leave. It took another ten minutes before he simply left the paper upon the kitchen counter, weighted down by the apple and the pen. It remained mostly blank, but he thought she would understand. There were words, feelings, thoughts, he could never put them down on paper. He would not know how.

He wrote only four words in small uncertain letters.

_My name was Bruce._

They were everything he couldn't say and the only thing he could.

He was sure she'd know what he meant.

* * *

**vi. wanderer**

He left with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He closed the door and he did not look back.

He told himself, over and over again, it was just a dream.

Everything had just been a dream.

He told himself so, but he did not believe it. Not yet.

***

The first day was not nearly as bad as he thought it might have been. It was almost as though he was going through the motions without much abnormality. He thought of himself simply on a long walk. He walked to the end of one street, and then when he got there, he endeavored to walk to the next. Small increments. It made it much more bearable on his part. All the while, he thought of her constantly, of her and little else. The absence had not yet sunk in. The memory of her touch was too recent, the scent of her hair too distinct, the exact curve of her smile too easily recalled, the cadence of her speech and the pitch of her voice. Her essence flooded his mind and it was all too clear for the reality of the situation take its toll. Yet.

If the first day was not too bad, the second day was one of the most horrible. It was on that second day he was fully aware he had woken up and was living in reality. Reality was better than his nightmares, but not by much.

He had slept horribly during the first night. Nightmare overtook him. It shook his whole body as he slept, curled in a ball in a cold, damp alleyway, and he woke up with a scream smothered in his throat and his heart pounding out of his chest. Afterwards, he could not (or would not) return to sleep. Instead he sat with his back against the wall, gritty brick digging into his skin and finding its way underneath his shirt. He spent those next four hours until the sun rose its blinding head with Becky haunting his mind.

The urge to return back to the safety of her world had never been as strong as in those moments. And he knew this, so he clenched his hands into fists and continued pressing the brick hard against his back until it broke skin. He kept his body tense and did not let himself relax one muscle. Pain. As long as he held onto that, he held onto one string of reality, and it was only that which kept him from running back. If he let go... he would go back, and if went back, he did not know if he could ever muster up the willpower to leave again.

This was the worst night.

***

That was not the worst year, but it was not one of the better ones, either.

He left the states, making his way across the Pacific through means which surprised even him.

When he was not too busy trying to survive the day, he felt intense pangs of longing.

At night, he had nightmares a plenty, but he had dreams a plenty too.

He dreamed of Becky.

***

He was harder by the second year.

The longings had dimmed and were replaced with a different drive, a powerful force within him to keep moving forward, reaching for some goal he could not see or even knew if it was there. In the first year, each day had been horribly hard for him. In the second, each day was still horribly hard, but for different reasons entirely.

His nightmares returned at full force. His dreams of Becky grew more and more scarce, until he hardly dreamed at all.

It was a bad year, but it was probably in that second year he truly first began to open his eyes.

***

How long had he spent in that dream? One week? Two? Whenever he tried to count the days in his memory, the number was never the same. Out of the hazy recollections of time spent in a most peaceful dream, he could sometimes count twelve days. Other times he counted sixteen. And sometimes, on his worst days, he counted only ten. Eventually, he put it down to two weeks, more or less, and left it at that. He would never find out the exact duration.

***

He thought of her less and less each day.

***

What was it he was looking for?

***

He did not know.

***

He found himself looking at the world straight in the eye.

He did not like what he saw, but he did not know what he could do.

He warred between anger and despair.

***

He thought of Gotham and it made him sick to his stomach. He thought of his parents, and he could not understand how Thomas Wayne had ever possessed so much hope. So much faith. He felt both jealous and relieved at the same time.

He thought of Alfred.

And he thought of Rachel.

***

He picked up Chinese in China. When he first began to learn it, he thought of Becky, and was surprised when he could not recall the last time he had actually thought of her.

For a long time afterwards, on a good day, when he spoke Chinese and heard himself speak the words aloud consciously, his mind sometimes drifted to her. He mused to himself, when he found it (whatever he was looking for), he would teach her to speak the language she forgot. It was a daydream, he knew, but the thought of it made him smile.

***

Years passed.

And then some more.

***

There came a time when it became rare for his thoughts to stray to Becky. When they did, he wondered how she was. It had been so long since that last night, and though he had told himself over and over that those short days had been but a precious dream, so much time had passed, it truly did seem a dream to him now. Sometimes he wondered if it ever really had happened at all, whether he had simply made her up in his loneliness.

It was hard to remember her face when once, he could recall every little detail.

She had been but a young girl at the time. He had been but a young boy. He was still uncertain with what his goal was in these endless wanderings, but he had grown. He was a young man now, and had he met her again, he thought to himself things would have been much different. At least, that was what he told himself.

He wondered if she had married.

He hoped she did.

He hoped Rachel had not.

***

He met a man who promised to open his eyes.

He did.

***

Bruce went home.

***

He put on the mask.

He chased scarecrows. He chased clowns. He chased old friends and white knights.

He became the Bat, and he thought of her not at all.

Except once in a blue moon, when he was in between nightmare and dream, he might see the vague outlines of her shape underneath the moon, the gentle warmth of her small hands in his, the rhythm of her voice as she told him a story.

And then she was gone.

Becky would always be the pleasantest of dreams.

* * *

**vii. uncharted**

She should never have come to Gotham.

That was the first thought which ran through her mind when she caught sight of the shadowy figure ahead, waiting. For her. She hastily looked around her and spotted two more shadows. They had her surrounded.

Her thoughts grew grim and she felt heaviness weighing her down.

Oh, but she could die here.

She didn't even live in the Narrows. She had just been making a quick run to the pharmacy and out of the fifteen minutes it took to get there, ten were spent on the metro.

She fought to keep her heart still, but it pumped mercilessly and she felt terror rushing in her veins. She put her hands in her purse and shifted them around until she found her pepper spray. In the other hand, she carefully positioned her keys between her knuckles. If they came at her, she wasn't going to go down without a fight. She couldn't. Not when...

She could not die.

Her hand tightened and she tried to smile without emoting her dismal thoughts onto her face. Perhaps, depending on what they seemed like, it was possible it would be better not to fight. It was possible it were better to compliant, if only they would not kill her. They could hurt her, but she could not die. She could not.

She continued to tread along her path cautiously, and as she approached the first man, the shadows were lifted and she saw him more clearly. He gave her a wretched smile. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. A dangerous glint in his knife as it caught light from the moon.

She stared down at it, her heart stuck in her throat. She stopped. Her eyes closed and she drew in a deep breath. As she did so, she could hear steps rapidly move in behind her, fulfilling all her expectations. When she opened her eyes again, there they were, on all sides. She let go of the keys and the pepper spray. She could not chance it. She had to live. Living was more important. As long as she lived, it would be okay.

"Money?" she said. It came out as a whisper. She grabbed her wallet and held it out in the air towards the man in front of her. "There's not much, but it's there."

He raised an eyebrow and his smile grew even wider.

And then she was flung against the wall in a sudden movement which tore a cry of shock out of her throat. She felt pain instantly flaring as her back hit the wall, but it was almost numbing in comparison to her heightened sense of fear. Before she could recover her senses, she felt a hand grasping her throat painfully and a knee pinning her down between her legs. Her breaths came out in little gasps as she wheezed through her constrained windpipe. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the other two behind him with matching jackal grins.

But, she could live yet.

She hung her hands at her sides, making no attempt to move them. Her captor grinned and said, "Smart girl. Not going to fight back?"

She forced herself not to tremble and looked him in the eye. "I don't want to die," she said as calmly as she could manage.

"Don't worry sweetheart, we're not going to kill you," he said, lifting his knee. Her breath hitched and though she tried to still it, her breaths became more frantic, her heart drumming underneath her skin like a little hummingbird's wings. He ran rough fingers down her cheek in an all too gentle caress before he moved his hand to the front of his pants, working the zipper. She flinched and willed herself not to cry but she could feel tears stinging her eyes.

As long as she lived...

Without another moment's notice, she could breathe easily again. She was knocked to the floor, her palms picking up the silt from the floor. When she looked up, she saw the one who had been holding her hostage face down on the ground. He was groaning in pain and trying unsuccessfully to pick himself up. Sounds of fighting drew her attention away from him, to the two who had been waiting for their turn, and him.

The Batman.

She felt a mild surprise, her mind still too dimmed in shock for her to feel anything stronger than numbed emotions of terror and relief. The Batman, he was supposed to be some crazy renegade who took justice in his own hands and had recently crossed the line into murder. She didn't much pay attention to politics. The state of the world and especially Gotham depressed her too much. There was only one reason why she had come in the first place, and that was troubling enough.

One fell. And then two.

She looked up at her savior and got a good glimpse of him in the light. His eyes looked like coals in the night and the mask covered most of his face, but she did not doubt he had a good, strong nose. His mouth...

Becky's eyes flew open.

"Stranger!" she cried.

He turned.

It was too dark. She could not see his eyes well but she knew that mouth. He simply stood, staring down at her, that mouth set in a grim line. And then he turned around, but before he could rush away, she spoke again. Quiet words, but she knew he could hear her.

"I could never forget that mouth," she said, resolve in her shaky voice. "I see it every day on my son."

He stopped for a moment. One beat, and then he was gone.

It was not until after, when she had began to gather herself together, did she notice her wallet was nowhere to be found.

***

The door buzzed and when Becky went to open it, she was not surprised to be meet the face she often saw gracing the covers of newspapers and magazines while she went around her daily business.

"Hello," she said. She studied him in a quick moment. He was much older. There were lines where there hadn't been before. More disconcerting were his eyes. They lost the desperate anger, but were instead clouded with something else. She wasn't sure what, but she had a feeling it had something to do with his nightly escapades.

She stepped backwards to let him in and her eyes swept across his form. He was wearing a suit. It looked more expensive than all of her clothes combined. And it was strange, very, very strange. She had seen him before in the magazines plenty of times, full color pictures with him wearing just the same type of clothing, but to have him before in flesh was entirely different.

Becky closed the door behind him and walked towards the kitchen. He followed in slow, measured steps, and when she had sat down and gestured him to do the same, she saw him roaming her living space with his curious eyes. He took his time before he settled into the seat across from her.

There was nothing but the sound of their breathing for a few minutes.

***

He looked down at his hands and she watched him.

He looked up.

"My name is Bruce," he said. His mouth quirked into a smile as he hesitated. "Bruce Wayne."

"I know," she said. She turned her eyes downwards and her lips curved. "I got your note."

"Ouch," he said with a reflexive grim smile, more of a grimace than a smile, really.

Becky covered her mouth with a hand, masking her little giggle. She shook her head while lifting her head to look up at him. "I've been wanting to say that forever, but, really. I meant about the Wayne bit." He looked at her curiously and she continued. "It made headline news all around the states when you first returned. Missing billionaire Bruce Wayne back from the dead. When I saw pictures, I knew it was you."

"Should have known," Bruce said wryly.

"You looked different. You look different now," said Becky. She appraised him carefully. As always, Bruce couldn't entirely read her expression. "You look really different," she said decidedly. Before Bruce could react, she hastily added, "But it's not bad. You look really different but you look... good, Bruce." The last word came out cautiously, as though she was testing it out on her tongue.

He decided he liked the sound of coming from her. He'd never realized until that moment how much he had wanted to hear her call him by his name.

"Thank you," he said. "You still look just as beautiful."

"A-ha. Don't think I'll fall for your wily ways, Mr. Wayne. I've heard you're quite the charmer," said Becky. She clicked her tongue in mock disapproval.

"No, really. Becky, I mean it," he said. His expression was earnest in typical Bruce-fashion and before she looked away, she looked like she wasn't sure if she quite believed him or found him seemingly too sincere to be false.

"Well," she said. She cleared her throat in a gesture of discomfort which sent a sudden pang of tenderness to his heart. He felt the inexplicable urge to gather her up into her arms and hold onto her for a long time. The intensity of the feeling surprised him. He had not felt anything remotely similar to it since Rachel.

"Anyway, after I saw the news..." her voice trailed. Her eyes wandered up the wall next to his head.

"You weren't sure whether you should try to find me," said Bruce.

"Well," said Becky, and then admitted, "I'm nobody."

"That's my line," he said weakly with forced humor.

"It was. But not anymore," she said. She finally lifted her eyes to meet his gaze head-on. "You're Bruce _Wayne_."

Bruce drew in a sharp breath. It surprised him how much that hurt.

"It doesn't mean anything," he said.

"It really does. But, that's beside the point," she said. Becky stood up and started to paced back and forth across the kitchen, gesticulating with her hands as she spoke. "I wasn't... I didn't know what I should do. If I should come up to Gotham, and if I did, then what? Could I even reach you? And Gotham's a whole lot more dangerous than where I come from. It was a big decision."

"But you came," he said.

"It took me a while to make the move. I was going to come earlier, but I wasn't sure after that... when you set your house on fire," she said. He could see the emotions play out on her face. Bemusement, bewilderment, simple disbelief.

"When you say it like that, you make it sound funny," said Bruce. His lips curved into a smile, a glimpse of memory flashing in his mind. "Well, actually, _you _must have been jealous."

"Only just a little," she said. She shared his smile, but hers was more subdued. "But it was a little insane, too. It made me really question whether I should come."

"There was a story behind that. I'll tell you one day," he said. What surprised him was that he meant it.

"I hope so. For a while I was a little... an arsonist knocked me up." Becky was staring at her hands now.

"It's a funny story to tell our grandchildren one day," Bruce offered.

"The thing is, I didn't know you at all, not really. Two weeks, Bruce, and I didn't even know your name until you had already gone," said Becky, though not accusingly. She was staring at him with her inscrutable expression. He could see the wheels turning in her mind as she considered everything, but he couldn't tell or even begin to guess what conclusions she would come to. He held his breath and waited.

"Well, I came anyway," she said. A pause. "And then I wish I hadn't," she said emphatically and he knew the exact meaning behind those words too well.

"Ah," said Bruce. He exhaled a deep breath and there was enough sorrow in the one sigh. He hadn't had to say anything else.

"It still scares me sometimes, the idea that the Joker might get loose."

"If he does--" Bruce immediately gazed up at her with the conviction of the dark knight.

"I know," she said. That was enough. Absolute comprehension in her eyes.

Silence lingered between the two for a few more moments.

"You must have been angry in the morning," he said. It was a thought which had been with him for a long time in those first weeks after he had left.

"Not really. I guess I sort of expected it," she said, and he felt some little relief. "It's why I held myself back so long."

"What do you mean?" Bruce was taken aback by her words.

"Oh really, Bruce." Becky rolled her eyes and smiled more genuinely with fond memory. "How do you think nineteen-year-old girl wracked up in hormones would react when she was suddenly living with a tall, dark, and handsome man? I wanted to jump you half the time."

"I didn't notice," he said dumbly. He turned her words over in his head. "You were nineteen?"

"Well, almost. Eighteen and a half," admitted Becky.

"Jail bait," said Bruce. He felt surprise again, but this time with the fact he had never even considered her age before, not really. She had always simply been Becky to him. In those moments, not quite a girl, not quite a woman, but somewhere in the same in-between as him.

"Pretty much," Becky said with another smile. "But really, it made you all the more attractive and jumpable. Why do you think I babbled so incessantly when I was changing your bandages? It was just overkill when you were half naked."

Bruce looked amused.

"I just thought you were talkative and a little quirky."

"Well," she said. "That, too."

Silence settled between the two again, but it was a more comfortable silence than before.

"His name is Richard," she finally said.

"If I had known..." Bruce started but Becky shook her head.

"I think, in the end, it was better this way. It was just a dream, Bruce," she said plainly. "If you had stayed, we would either have never woken up, or it would have just ended horribly."

"Perhaps," he said, but when he thought about it, he knew she was right. Had he stayed, he would have been some shade of happy, but for how long? The restlessness that had been in him to discover himself would have grown too strong and either he would have gone one day anyway, or a bitterness would have grown which would have driven them apart. Becky was right, but now he simply wished he had made his discoveries sooner.

"Although, I must admit, Doctor Andrews swore if he ever saw you again, he was going to skin your hide, and that was before he was going to force you to make an honest woman out of me," she said.

"Good man," said Bruce. He remembered him very, very vaguely. He remembered her chatting about her neighbor now and then, and he remembered he was the one who had helped nurse him back to health in those first days.

"He was," she said, smiling sadly.

Another story.

"I had always hoped you'd gotten married, settled down, started a family," he said.

"I didn't get married, but I have a family now," she said.

Another silence.

"Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know," she admitted. She was quiet for a while before she looked him in the eye and said straightforwardly, with no hesitation, "If I asked you to stop, would you?"

A harsh intake of breath and Bruce closed his eyes as he thought over her question. He opened them.

"No," he said, his voice all sorrow and honesty. "I can't. This city needs me."

"That's what I thought," said Becky.

"Would you really ask me to stop?" he asked with just as little hesitation.

Becky was quiet for a long time before she shook her head.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "You're right, and I'm glad."

He looked at her questioningly.

"That you would say no. It makes me feel safer there's a person like you out there."

Bruce ran a hand through his hair. "Becky. Every thing's such a mess right now. It's just..." He wasn't sure how to explain. She was grateful because he had saved her life, sure, but at the same time, he had no idea what she really thought of him. There was many things he had done, many things he hadn't, and many he wish he could have. Then, there were many things said.

"There are lots of things I don't understand, but I know you didn't kill those people," she said firmly. Bruce glanced at her, his smile tight. "Well, I don't know for sure, but since you _are _the father of my son, I'm going to choose to believe what I will."

"That's a dangerous line of thinking," he said.

"Did you, then?" She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"No."

"Exactly. You can call it a mother's intuition," she said. It would be the first time of many when he would face her impenetrable logic. Her head lifted when she caught sight of the clock on the wall. "Ah, and right now, my son should be coming home."

She beckoned him to follow her with a gesture. Bruce stood, but he stayed still, uncertain.

"Becky, what happens next?"

The front door opened.

"Mom, I'm home," yelled a young boy, back from school.

"First we'll just take it one step at a time," she said.

Becky smiled kindly at him.

"Come, Bruce. You should meet your son."

* * *

**Author's Note**

And it is finally complete! If you didn't know already, I started writing this because of Batman Begins back in 2006. I had a short but sweet story planned of what could have happened in Bruce's absence. However, I lost interest in finishing, until I watched the Dark Knight and wanted to write Bruce again. So, three years later, this is finally complete albeit quite a bit differently than I had originally imagined.

The last section is a bit dialogue heavy, especially considering the last few chapters have been more internalized, but I wanted to bring a different feel to this chapter, one that was a little less dreamy and more solid and real. But if it isn't to your liking, you can think of 5/Awakening as the ending instead, as I did really consider stopping it there.

EDIT 4/3/09: I compiled all the little chapters together for easier reading. Also, I did start a new Batman fic called Snakes and Ladders which is again Bruce/OC for those interested.

As always, any sort of feedback is much appreciated. :)


End file.
